Thursday, August 22, 2013

Guest Post by Tim Myers

Joe sez: I'm going to be taking a blogging break during August, but I've got twelve guest posts scheduled this month, so they'll appear as slotted.

Today it's Tim Myers...

First things first.

My name is not Tim Myers.

Well, that’s not exactly true. It’s just not my only name.

I’ve been writing mysteries for over two decades. I’ve sold more than a million books in that time, and the main lessons I’ve learned are that the keys to having a career are telling the best stories that I can, never giving up, and nurturing a willingness to adapt.

I broke into NY publishing going against common wisdom from the start, writing cozy mysteries from a male point of view. I grew up devouring Agatha Christie, and that’s where I stayed when I first started writing. In a field dominated by women, I was one of the few men working regularly in that particular subgenre of what I like to think of as gentle mysteries. After fifteen books and three series with one of the Big 6 publishers, because of my sales numbers I had to make a choice: pick a female pseudonym and start over, or give up on my dreams of being a long term career writer. My numbers were good, my books sold through and I was making royalties on all of my titles, but they weren’t spectacular enough to merit more books in the eyes of my publisher.

So, in 2004, I became Elizabeth Bright.

I won’t lie to you; it was tough giving up my identity at first, but I was still being published, and that was what counted, right? And really, what other choice did I have? Back then, traditional publishing was the only option I had if I wanted to have a sustainable income.

So I did what I had to do to keep my career alive.

Over the years, I added Melissa Glazer, Chris Cavender, Casey Mayes, and other names I still can’t disclose. One even made the New York Times Bestseller list. Let me tell you something; it’s tough making that list and not being able to tell anyone which book, or even which name, broke through.

After over forty books with the Big 6, though, I started feeling uneasy about how much publishers were demanding in new contract negotiations, and how little they were willing to budge on terms that were important to me.

Finally, I couldn’t do it anymore.

In 2011 and 2012, I had two contract offers from different Big 6 publishers, and I walked away from both of them. There were several provisions neither publisher would budge on, but one of the most important aspects for me was not being able to swallow the noncompete clauses that would handcuff me in my efforts to continue earning a living. I’d already published much of my backlist, and I’d enjoyed the process, so it was time to put up or shut up. I decided to wait out certain contractual restrictions until I could start publishing continuing novels on my own, and I started creating brand new series while I waited.

And I never looked back.

It was a risky move, giving up sure money for my independence, but it was something that I had to do. I didn’t have any idea at the time, but going out on my own was the best thing I could have done for my career, and overall wellbeing. Having no one else to answer to, I found a newly elevated level of happiness in my work, and in my life. Writing has become a true joy again, and I love the control I have. In truth, I enjoy all aspects of my work these days, from writing to designing covers to formatting, but the thing I love most is that I can write what I want, when I want.

It’s been an added bonus that I’m making more now than I ever have before, but even if that weren’t the case, I know that I would still make the same decision today.

For me, striking out on my own was the only real choice that I had, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I’m grateful every day for something a lot of new writers take for granted, the fact that I even have a choice.

The only way that I’ve been able to have a career this long is by telling the best stories I can, never giving up, and being willing to change when the circumstances have dictated it.

Thanks to Joe for this opportunity to share a little of my story, and to Tess for championing such a worthy cause.

Joe sez: Tim's book Slow Cooked Murder is $3.99 on Kindle. I congratulate him on his success, and salute him for being the shortest guest blog post in the history of A Newbie's Guide to Publishing. Go buy Slow Cooked Murder, right now.

Two things struck me about his brief but on-point post. First, the number of pen names he's had, and second, him talking about writing being fun again. Both of those hit home with me.

I had eight books with legacy publishers before calling it quits. And I only had four pen names (two are still secret, and one, like Tim, is female.)

None of it was fun.

I originally went with J.A. Konrath instead of Joe Konrath because I was writing a first person female protagonist, and I thought readers would be more accepting of the books if they thought the author was a woman. The first copies of Whiskey Sour made no mention that I was a dude. It was my idea, and maybe it helped me sell a few more books, but I'm not J.A., I'm Joe.

Then I became Jack Kilborn because my publisher dropped their mystery line during my second contract, and really messed up the releases of my last three books, causing a sales dip (even though two of those three went into second printings in hardcover). So when I switched to horror, I went with a pen name so I'd have a larger bookstore pre-order than my last J.A. Konrath title.

It worked, and Afraid became my best selling title. Then I had a falling out with my publisher. In the meantime, I did a sci-fi book, and figured new genre, new name. So I became Joe Kimball for Timecaster. But about that time I was starting to sell well in Kindle, and I suggested going out with Joe Konrath on Timecaster. They didn't go for it, and Joe Kimball was a dismal failure.

Then I really started making serious money on self-pubbed ebooks, and many claimed it was my name recognition (courtesy of my legacy publishers) that was responsible for my success. So I wrote some books under a pen name, and made a ton of money, just to prove to myself that I could.

No, I'm not going to reveal that pen name.

But I shall now reveal my newest pen name. Here's the story...

These four titles were part of a super-secret experiment I've been conducting.

I wanted to see if it was possible to completely write, format, make my own cover art, and publish an ebook, in less than an hour. While drunk.

Well, I did it. Four times.

In four drunken hours on four separate occasions (I love beer), I published four ebooks.

And I'm proud to say that these four titles earn me about $10 a week.

That's right. You don't need great cover art to sell ebooks. You don't need a household name (ask Robert Galbraith.) You don't need lots of words.

You can make money, right now, with almost no effort. And who needs a degree in art or a mastery of Photoshop? With no talent at all, and very little time, you can create covers like these:

You might say, "But Joe, these are only making you $50 a month. That's really bad!"

That's what it looks like to the casual observer. But you need to envision the big picture.

$50 a month is $600 a year. In ten years, that's $6000.

Have you ever made $6k in only four hours, drinking beer?

Now I'll take some questions.

Q: This is a joke, right?

A: Do you remember back when you were a young writer, and you wrote for the sheer joy of it? No worry about craft or structure. No concern over marketability. No angst over if you were good enough.

I became a writer because I enjoyed amusing myself. When I was a teenager back in the 1980s, I would actually print up stories on my Brother Word Processor, head out to Kinko's, and spiral bind copies for my extremely tolerant and amazingly supportive family and friends. Few things in my career have ever equaled watching a loved one laugh at one of my stupid story compilations.

Surely I'm not the only young writer that did that.

But ever since treating writing as a profession, I've lost some of that joy. Writing became work. The act of creation is a bankable skill that requires a lot of effort to hone into something salable.

That's what this experiment was about. Doing it just for fun.

So I popped open some cold ones and went wild with dumb jokes, writing and giggling like an idiot, luxuriating in the pure, unadulterated glow of creation. But instead of Mom putting them on the fridge when I was done, I went ahead and self-published.

And I'm making money. Not a lot, but enough to amuse me. And maybe a few others.

In fact, some people are even giving these ebooks good reviews. Though the bad reviews are a lot funnier. I'm highly amused when people don't get the joke. It's the rascal in me.

Now I'll take some questions.

Q: This is really for real?

A: Each ebook is 99 cents, and takes about five minutes to read. Here are the links:

If you have a sense of humor, you should find a few laughs in these. If you wouldn't pay 99 cents for a few laughs, don't buy them.

And those who buy them thinking they're real? Well, that's just plain funny as hell. Anyone who looks at the cover and reads the description should know they're a joke.

Q: OMG! I clicked on the link and those ebooks really exist! Are you really Doctor Hans Uberass?

A: As far as you know.

Q: So why didn't you put them under your own name? Maybe your fans would like these.

A: I didn't write them for my fans. I wrote them for fun, as a joke. Some people will get the joke. Some won't. The goal wasn't to sell a bunch. Hell, the goal wasn't to sell any at all. It was to create something that amused me, simply because I could, and then tell my close friends and family about them so they could share the laugh. Just like when I was a teenager.

Q: That's wrong! Writing is a serious profession! You're making a mockery of it, and hurting readers in the process! This is why self-publishing is a pox on the world!

A: I know that a lot of people are wringing their hands, worried that the self-publishing revolution will produce a lot of crap.

They're right. It will.

But that's okay.

One of the wonderful things about being human is our creativity. We like making stuff. Sometimes the stuff is good and will benefit a lot of people. Sometimes it's only good enough for Mom to hang on the refrigerator.

There's room for everybody.

Amazon has given writers the greatest gift imaginable. They've allowed us to satisfy our innate, creative desires, and reach readers.

If your ebook sucks, it won't reach many readers. But you can still have fun with it. And perhaps learn from it, continue to grow as an artist, and maybe one day you'll write something that doesn't suck.

We're all so concerned about making money and being successful.

But no poet ever wrote to make money. No amateur painter ever expected to have his work hung in the Lourve. You don't throw a pot hoping for fame, and you didn't take piano lessons because you have aspirations to play Carnegie Hall.

You do those things because you want to.

Q: But... but... but... if there are no quality standards, no minimum talent requirements, then how will readers know what ebooks to buy?

A: That's why I'm selling my backlist to a legacy publisher. Their gatekeeping abilities will serve as imprimatur, directing readers to the good stuff that has been professionally vetted.

Q: But you just said...

A: Kidding.

Lighten up, laugh a bit. Life is so much better that way.

And support Doctor Hans Uberass on his Epic Quest to Make Self-Publishing Not So Serious.

Q: How can I support Doctor Hans Uberass on this Epic Quest to Make Self-Publishing Not So Serious?

A: I'm glad you asked.

I realize an hour is probably not enough time for most people to write and publish an ebook. And truth told, with the proof-reading and tweaking and editing, it probably took me a bit more than an hour each for these. Maybe an hour and fifteen minutes.

But there is no reason why an ebook can't be written and published in a few hours. And there's no reason you shouldn't try.

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to write, edit, format, create your own cover, and publish an ebook in an eight hour period.

If you do that, I'll do a blog featuring your ebook, so the whole world can learn what a speedy little creative dynamo you are.

I'll be honest. I don't think most writers will be able to do this. The Uberass ebooks are between 1500 and 2500 words, and the jokes aren't all bad. The covers, done in Microsoft Paint, look terrible, but actually had some thought put into them (they're readable as thumbnails and grayscale, have a distinct brand look, and are hopefully funny.)

Are you faster and better than Konrath?

If you're up to the challenge, publish your ebook, then email me the link with ONE DAY EBOOK CONTEST in the header. I will blog about everyone who manages to complete the challenge. No joke, no trick. If you can do it, I'll blog about it.

152 comments:

Joe, I love this beyond belief. Brings back memories of my early days in mmpb. I was a young editor/writer. In those days, there were no marketing departments, no bean counters, even the bosses didn't care what we did as long as we made money. A little. A lot. Didn't much matter.

I sat around with writers thinking up whacky ideas, getting them written (fast), putting on covers (we had an art director who made porn flicks on the side) and publishing them. They sold—some of the sold a lot. Really a lot. The company didn't go bankrupt, readers bought them so they must have liked them (at least a little). Westerns, astrology, sex advice, mysteries, spy thrillers, gothic romance, "memoirs," action-adventure—you name it, if we thought it could sell, we cooked it up & had a ball doing so.

It's hard to believe but, once upon a time, publishing was actually fun and a way for editors and writers to make a living. Self-pub is bringing back that sense of joy and freedom.

Thanks for having me, Joe! I'd say more, but I'm off to try your challenge ! I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with. After all, that's what it's all about. Having fun writing is something that none of us should ever forget!

I just finished my entry and published it. Title? How to Be A Real Writer by Bess Seller.It's actually got some pretty good advice in it, and it was written with humor in mind. A lot of fun.Time started 11:38Time hit Publish 12:38.One hour, on the nose.By the way, I dedicated it to you, Joe! Thanks for the great idea.

This is a fun idea. I don't think I'll go for the challenge, but it does make me reconsider putting up more short stories. I've got a ton of those that wouldn't require much effort to polish up and publish.

BTW, Joe, have you had any takers on your Jack Daniels co-author deal?

I loved this on the Wealth one: *("Wealthtacular" is copyrighted, and you aren't allowed to use it without express permission of Doctor Hans Uberass, or Major League Baseball.) LMAOROTF!

Tim,

I love your Candlemaking mysteries! I just finished A Flicker of a Doubt yesterday, wish there were more novels out there (I know there's a short, which I'll probably pick up anyway, 'cause I love the characters so much.)

Are you ever going to write any more in that series? (My guess is probably not, so I'll have to read your other mysteries... :-))

First off, thanks so much for your kind words. I'm writing under a few of my more successful pseudonyms for the foreseeable future, but I've learned to never say never! That's what I love about this new world of publishing! I was thrilled to get the chance to write a few more lighthouse mountain books that I needed to write for myself, so you never know!

I started writing books--not to become a novelist, but entirely to make myself laugh--so for me there's never been any joy greater than writing books.

It's like that old Steve Martin gag. (SADLY) "I've only got three bucks. Guess I'll just throw it in the street. Wait? What? I can come in here for three bucks? Deal!" The fact that I 'only' make a few hundred bucks a month doesn't matter to me in the slightest. It's like getting paid to masturbate.

Wow, this is so awesome. I might actually give this a try. Why not? I might carve out a weekend, write a short story, do my own cover, and toss it out there. Joe, you're a genius, man. If nothing else, it'll be a great experience. Plus, I'll use a pen name, so I will never have to own up to it. Huzzah!

challenge accepted and met in under three hours. MIRANDA RITES--The Exorcism Murder of an Innocent should go live in less than 12 hours. (About ten pages) cover done with kindle's cover creator and public domain image. Something I always wanted to write about so I turned it into an article.

Great titles & author name! I think I'm going to buy them just for fun.

I actually do this every week. I started posting them as freebies on my blog every Wednesday (yesterday's was the fourth), and also sending 'em to Amazon & Smashwords. One of 'em might have taken eight hours, but the others didn't come close. It's an amazing amount of fun. I've committed to doing it for a year, along with a bunch of other stuff I haven't admitted to publicly yet but ought to also be a blast.

Thing is, I've been doing the actual writing & cover creation a few days in advance of the blog posts--and I'm going to start delaying things even further by waiting a week for non-blog publication so the blog gets a temporary exclusive.

So I guess I could qualify for this easily enough, but I'm doing a guest post here about the stories & related topics next month anyway. So what the heck.

How To Be A Real Writer by Bess Seller is now for sale on amazon! That was fast, and great fun! I just reread it and found one typo, I'd redo the cover and make the lettering stand out more if I had it to do over again, but all and all, I'm happy with the results of an hour's labor.

Joe, I already did this. I was in a fit of rage after work one Friday night and decided I was going to write and publish a book in 1 day the next day. So I got up Saturday and wrote, formatted, and published a 5K story between noon and 8pm.

This happened on June 15th, 2013. Since then I've published 11 more 5K short stories and created 2 bundles and made just under $3,000.

It's in a taboo erotica genre so a lot of people turn their nose up at my story. But I don't care. One of my books was in the top 5K on Kindle for almost a month, so it couldn't be complete crap. ;)

Nice one Joe! I think Hans may be the only self-pubbed author I'm outselling. Inspired by your industry transparency crusade, I'm publishing a real-time graph of my sales and income at jason-davis.co I invite Hans (and his cousin Hugh Jass) to check out the competition. Game on!

Very interesting post, especially concerning the aliases Tim and Joe have had to use over the years.

I might be facing a decision in the future. I have written a non-fiction career book in my profession, now I'm writing a self help book which is really a fictional story but offers inspiration and good ideas. Both of these books are in my name.

But now I am working on a real fiction book, a thriller type book and there will be a controversial plot point in the book that might anger some people. So now I'm thinking I will most likely have to publish this book using an alias.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? I have already built a brand with my name and I don't want to damage any of my book sales because of a controversial fictional book.

Thanks for this! It's encouraging and the reason I write. I love it! And so true that you forget why you began writing in the first place. I love, love what you said that there's room for everybody. Yes there is! Bless you.

Great post, Tim. Thanks for sharing and much continued success to you. I have just started to experiment with pen names and so far so good.Joe, your challenge just gave a bigger boost to my morning muse than my coffee. I like this idea :)

Mario, I'd say that you should do what you're most comfortable with doing. That's what counts at the end of the day. There are no hard and fast rules about using pennames in this brave new world of publishing.

For anyone else interested, you can get Worse Than Dying, a dark and quick little zombie story here: http://www.amazon.com/Worse-Than-Dying-ebook/dp/B00EPNGPA2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377261012&sr=8-1&keywords=K.H.+Graham+Worse+Than+Dying

I just wanted to write to let you know that "How to Stop Farting" has changed my life. My farting problem is what led me to a career as a writer in the first place. You see, it was so bad I couldn't work in any environment in proximity to other people, so I had to come up with something I could do from within the sealed doors and windows of my house. Thankfully, the Internet and Amazon has allowed this.

Unfortunately, it has also introduced a whole new problem that is severely inhibiting my career. That problem is in part attributable to the endless variety of free Internet porn that has become a huge distraction. I realize this may be outside your field of specialty, but perhaps you could consider penning a new work: How to Stop Masturbating?

Meeting Monday is available now on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Meeting-Monday-Chronicles-Origin-ebook/dp/B00EPW3XI0 for $0.99

Thanks for the inspiration, Joe.

Meeting Monday is an origin story for my Jake Monday Chronicles series. It is a mix of Jason Bourne & James Bond meets Sidney Bristow from Alias. This short story is about how they meet for the first time.

Tim - I just wanted to say your story is very encouraging. You seem to be an example of the kind of professional success that is becoming more widely available, simply by doing what you love and doing it well. I want to congratulate you, but I suspect you don't need it.

By the way, yes Tim, congratulations. It's very awesome that you are taking control of your career, and your pen names, of your stories. All romance authors certainly don't have to be women. Women just want an incredible story and a hero to fall in love with. And it takes a real man to stand up and admit that he writes romance! Thank you.

Thanks, Anon 12:53. I appreciate your kind words. Actually, I was a ten-year overnight success story! I sold over eighty mystery short stories before I sold my first novel, and now my novel count exceeds my short story total! My book total is split about fifty/fifty between Big 6 and Indie. I never thought I'd ever live to see that.

Thanks to you, too, Taylor! I'm a cozy mystery writer by trade, but I have sold one romance, a short story to Woman's World run on Valentine's Day, of all days. I actually got a fan letter because of it from a woman chiding me for taking a man's name, since clearly a woman wrote it! It's one of my treasures. I've long believed that the key to good writing is empathy, no matter what your personal POV is, but that's another subject entirely.

So far this is the most amusing guest post from the summer for me. Thanks Tim! And Joe, thanks for the challenge. It's one I readily accepted and dove into yesterday -- it just happened to be my day off. :)

When the challenge came out yesterday, I hadn't considered this new storyline, pseudonym, or anything. I started completely from scratch, but with a close love -- teen vampire drama! Not something I write about under my current penname, so….

I just hit publish on my first short story under a new pseudonym! My Undead Life: Waking Up Dead is the first story by Delilah Vane:"It's fifteen-year-old Angel's first day as a vampire…"

Thanks for the push! I spent an hour and a half on the cover, but also made several more at the same time with different titles for upcoming stories (awesome! got a whole storyline out of this!). It took me about an hour to conceptualize and jot down notes for the new storyline (once again, I have many ideas left over for future stories), just under three hours to write the story, half an hour to edit and format, and about an hour total to set up a new gmail for the pseudonym, a new Amazon & KDP account, and actually publish the book.

So that's about seven hours total -- a great investment, especially considering that I wouldn't have been nearly as productive with that day off without this excitement. :)

Oh no Joe! You're going to have a LOT of amusing drek to push here on your blog... and won't it be a riot when some of it goes big? Though I can't imagine anything surpassing your magnum opus on fartology.

Yeah, I'm psyched! I came out of it with more ideas, and a new place for some old ideas I was struggling with publishing under my "brand." Very good stuff! I hope it works for you, and many others, too.

I actually have a 3k word short story and another 410 word 'flash fiction' story I got done in six hours. I'll be uploading it today/tonight after spending an hour or so making sure there are no spelling/grammar/punctuation problems. It's a two-for-one deal thanks to Joe Konrath and his Great Ideas.

Speaking of maybe a good idea...I'd be interested in Joe taking all of the short stories produced because of this blog post and putting them in a collection, selling the collection for whatever he thinks people will buy it for, and then donating the money to whatever favorite charity most of us could agree on (or just let Joe pick the charity).

If someone wants to spend $.99 (or free, assuming Amazon will ever price match) on my two little short stories, great, but I wrote them more for the challenge than the money. If everyone else is not too worried about the money, I think we could maybe do a little bit of good in the world by contributing our stories to a collection that others might buy to help out a good cause.

Of course, getting a bunch of writers to agree to let their story be sold by someone else is probably a whole bucket of headaches, but that's why we have guys like Joe around ;).

He knows all the routines and tricks and could probably use his sultry, sweet southern voice (he might sound like a 4-pack per day smoker who chases his cigs with rotgut whiskey for all I know, but it sounds better to my wife's imagination that he talks like Matthew McConaughey).

Anyway, it's just a thought. But I would totally be down with such a thing!

Hope this challenge is still live, I'm scurrying away to write before the house awakens. Hopefully will be live before the day is through! It's almost 9 on a Saturday morning here in Dublin, and Dr Rambling Took is about to launch into existence. I'll let you know when I'm done, hopefully before the kids wake up!

And thanks, Anon 3:02! I love doing all of my titles, and it's so much fun to have them actually used these days. I got so upset with a Woman's World editor once changing my titles that I submitted one as Mystery #34. Wow, did I take some heat over that one!

192At last! Finished the book in jig time! Kindle decided to act the goat, so just got it uploaded now. Hopefully it goes live soon. It's called I’m Going To Start Writing NOW! Honestly!' and is penned by mu alter ego, Dr Rambling Took.

Many thanks to Joe and Tim for the inspiration! It's been a fun challenge! I look forward to reading some of the many offerings that will spring from this!

Just uploaded The Understudy by J.E. Taylor to amazon kdp. It's 1600 word short horror story and took a total of 4 hours to write and publish. Finding the cover took just as long as the writing of the story. :) I'll send the link to you once it finishes publishing. :)

Ok, I just submitted mine to Amazon. It's titled Bottling Farts by Donald Rump. I'll post a link to it once it becomes available.

Cover creation, formatting and putting it up on Amazon took about an hour. (More time was spent searching for an appropriate image than actually creating the cover.) Writing/editing took another three hours. So four-ish hours total for a 2,100-word short.

Not bad, but certainly not as fast as Joe. Still, being able to write and publish something in a matter of hours is exhilarating.

This post was awesome. I've been stuck in a rut writing these days and had been thinking of doing some short fiction. Your post pushed me over the edge and I was able to write this 3300 word short story, format, and create my own book cover in less than 6 hours. Now mind you, 4 hours were today, 2 over the last couple. I do work full time! :D

I made my own cover by doing a quick photo shoot in my kitchen and using the picture on PicMonkey.com to create the cover. For some reason, the cover is not showing on Amazon, but I'll get it sorted. They did upload it. Anyway, thanks for the challenge and I hope to do more of these. It was a blast!

Mine took about 4.5 hours. Most of that time was spent on the crappy cover I made in Paint. 2500 words total for "Horror Stories From A Computer Tech" by: Geekus Maximus. I've already sold a few copies... but Amazon screwed up and they haven't added the cover I've uploaded twice now. Sigh... oh well. Here's the link in case anyone wants a few good laughs and a slightly creepy read: www.amazon.com/dp/B00ERCYNDC/

Oh and it will have a cover at some point... I've already e-mailed Amazon about it. :-P Thanks for the challenge, Joe. Thanks for the post, Time. Good times, good times.

Hey Geekus, I've never done this before and I can't view my new cover either. I noticed on the Kindle community forum someone has posted a question about this and I have emailed the powers at be...hopefully a technical hitch soon to be rectified??

I made up a pen name on the spot and now find out there is another author of the same name in the same genre...oops. Not sure how to fix that either. I was thinking about time and didn't do the whole due diligence thing.

I bet it's a glitch on the Amazon side. If I click on the "No Image Available," the sample shows my cover. So I know they have it. Maybe they just had too much uploaded over the past few days thanks to the challenge from Joe. :-P That's honestly my best guess. Hope your cover and mine make it up there soon and good luck! :-)

I did it. OMG I did it. I just hit publish on a short story I conceived while baking bear claws at work this morning. I got home from work at 1:30pm and published by 7pm. The story is still in "review" mode on amazon but I will send you the link when it's up.

Wow. My comment was the Hundredth Comment and the title of my short story is The Hundredth Horse. Coooool. However, I went in to update the cover photo and two things: One, the book is still in "review" so I can't do anything and Two, the site is down for scheduled maintenance. If I update the cover photo, will it make the book unavailable after it posts to my 'author account'? Any tips would be helpful.

I have to say that this was tremendous fun! I ended up having to make a few 'chapters' shorter than I planned as I sort of got carried away in the enjoyment of writing for fun, instead of purely for work. The final tally was over 9000 words lol

Holy crap, that was an 8-hour marathon! But I did it - I've got a shiny new short story up on Amazon (pending review, bla bla bla). It's called Ivan & Ilya, Or, The Magic Teapot (A Fairy Tale). Falls a little bit on the Grimms side of the spectrum. 5500 words. 99 cents on Amazon and I'm going to post it for free on Wattpad as well. Would love to meet more fellow Wattpadders - just look up CL_Frey and send me a friend request!

Ok, The Chapped-Ass Critic has been submitted. Even though it's just 2,200 words, it took me longer than the previous one. I'm a little sketchy as to what time I started (I took a nap in between stories), but I think it's about 5 hours.

So two stories in 9 hours, for a total of 4,300 published words. Now if I could just make a living from this, I'd do this all day, every day.

Mine has gone live on Amazon at last, I hope it is ok to post the link here? The Book is called, I'm Going-Start-Writing NOW! Honestly and it is penned by Dr Rambling Took. I really enjoyed the challenge, but got a little frustrated when trying to publish on Amazon. Think I have the hand of it now though!

Thanks so much for the idea, I loved working on it, and hope to do a few more over the next few weeks! THE link for Dr Took's first offering is below.

I did it! It took about four and a half hours start to finish. I had so much fun with it that I did it again yesterday. I'm going to add a third title today. I did have issues with the cover not showing up so I resubmitted and now it's there. Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/Discovery-Vampires-of-Newville-ebook/dp/B00ERCGYH0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1377436381&sr=1-1&keywords=vampires+discovery

I am Ariel Paige and I took Joe's challenge. I wrote an almost 8,000 word erotic novella. It's just basically a romance a la Harlequin, but with one hot sex scene.It's free for the weekend on Amazon--entitled Original Sin.Not a very original title but what can I say it took a few hours to write, type and slap an apple on the cover. I would love for you guys to check it out.

I seem to have done it a bit differently. I wrote a ~15,000 word story I'd been wanting to write but hadn't found the time for.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ERBKBYI

It's just a story I'd been wishing I had time for, finished now because Joe gave us a kick in the pants! The writing took a little over four hours, the rest of the time spend for editing (three plus) and cover art (less than one). I am pleased overall with how it turned out. It seems I can average ~3500 words an hour when I don't second-guess myself! :)

This was the best use of a Saturday I've had in a while. Took me about 6 hours to write. Formatting could have been a horror story, because I HATE to do it, but went smoothly. Cover was annoying because I'm such a spaz. I used Amazon cover creator - was that ok? If so - challenge met! Bringing Up Baby - The very short, completely made-up and totally tongue-in-cheek guide to the hardest job on the planet - is now live on Amazon!BTW - Do you know you unleashed a shortstorm over on Kboards? Thanks joe!

Love how some people apparently took Dr. Überass seriously and one-starred the books, because the advice did not help them attract the opposite sex.

Since I'm between projects at the moment, I took your challenge and wrote, proofed, formatted, created the cover (using one of my regular templates) and published a 3750 word pirate story in approx. seven hours.

Unfortunately, Amazon is a bit slow at the moment, but the story is now live. You can find it here:

Here's the link to my completed short story. It's called Gain and the description is: 2700 words. The rich feast while the poor labor. But the table is about to be turned.http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ERPWMAK

This was a fantastic challenge and the sense of satisfaction is amazing. Thanks so much Joe, and everyone else who got enthused about this.

How are you? After reading Whiskey Sour I found your website and I sent you a letter telling you (okay gushing about) how much I loved your book. I wonder if I was the one who sent you your first fan letter. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?

Also, thanks to your Newbie’s Guide to Publishing I have learned so much. Really, I can’t thank you enough. But I will try – Thank You!

We have some things in common- including our Illinois connection and our adjunct experience. I grew up on the Southside of Chicago- 79th and Cicero near Midway Airport. I worked as adjunct at Moraine Valley Community College as well as College of Dupage (in the mid 90’s, I think you said you taught there in 2002?)

Anyway, I took on your challenge to write, edit, format, create my own cover, and publish an ebook in an eight hour period. And you said if we can do that “I'll do a blog featuring your ebook, so the whole world can learn what a speedy little creative dynamo you are… No joke, no trick. If you can do it, I'll blog about it.” Thank you for offering that as an added incentive!

You asked if we were “better and faster than Konrath.” I will have to say Joe, you are one incredibly talented writer, so I won’t compare myself to you- ever. And as far as the fast part, I finished my book under the eight hour time allotted. It was completed in five and three quarter hours – give or take a minute or two. My book is slightly over 2500 words.

Writing as Ina Margaret Wright, or I. M. Wright, let me be this feisty, opinionated, no nonsense older lady with a bunch of kids who has been married forever. When in reality I am a fifty-one year old mother of four, married for over twenty two years, I have some very strong viewpoints, I am pretty spirited, hmmm, now that I think of it, maybe I am that feisty older lady after all!

For me, the actual writing took the least amount of time. Under two hours. The editing/rewriting and making the cover took the longest. I have never made an ebook cover before. For my other books and short stories, I hired graphic designers. For I.M. Wright’s book “Ten Marriage Secrets” (with FREE bonus! #1 weight loss secret) I made the cover in KDP in their cover creator program. Not too shabby. Also, I made sure that it looked crisp and clean in the thumbnail version.

I can’t say if my book is as clever and funny as your Dr. Uberass books. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge- it really got my creative juices flowing. Knowing that I could do an entire book from start to finish in such a short time was empowering as well.

I took the challenge and the book went live on Saturday evening, the picture did not immediately show up though. It's called How To Walk A Dog, I did the cover with a photo of some friends' dog and the Kindle cover creator. From the first keystroke to hitting publish it took me 5 hours and 55 minutes.

I decided to do this and set out to write ten separate stories about my life in retail management. Then I decided I didn't want to manage ten different titles, so I decided to publish it as two different collections with five stories each.

"Adventures in Retail, Part 1" went live this morning, and I had a blast writing it. These five stories took five hours and fifteen minutes, so a little over an hour for each one. I hope I'm not too late to the party!

As a man used to combat, Palestinian solider Salman isn't used to guarding a beach. He feels his assignment is beneath him. In fact, it's really beginning to bug him. The Devohrah Initiative is a short story of about 3,500 words in length, and can easily be read in one sitting. It mixes elements of horror and satire, and provides a chilling insight into how the war on terrorism might be fought. This story is intended for older readers.

Normal price: $0.99

I will be setting my KDP Free Days to coincide with your post promoting everyone who won. Thanks, Joe!

Since I was hanging out with my granddaughter all day, at nap time, I found an old short story I wrote a few years back that was terrible. I rewrote it, made a cover with a 10 year old copy of photoshop and some credits I had at canstock..and published the ebook as a short story under my pen name.

Thanks for the great idea, Joe! About 2 hours to rewrite and come up with the cover...should be live on Amazon tonight.

Well, I did it. Silly me. I started about 3:00 pm, and just pushed the publish button (it's 11:00 pm). I did take a couple of hours there to drive home from work ('cause I was totally working on this there), and have some dinner.

The formatting is probably bad, and the images might be terrible. But what the heck, right.

It's 'in review' right now, but the title, when published, is "A New Species in the Family Probovisassistidae (Cnidaria, Anthozoa), from the Eocene of the Uinta Basin, Utah."

It's a parody description of an old glove that I found in a drainage while I was out doing some real paleontology.

Great fun. I could see myself publishing a short pamphlet of poetry this way once school starts. 8 hours for me is 3 actual days of writing time and I've missed the deadline anyway but hell yeh, I'll have a go.